This site was constructed to assist Shimer College alumni and students in understanding the future developments of the College. All information, thoughts, and opinions are welcome. If you'd like to join please email me at saradevil at g mail .

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Friday, June 01, 2012

If you don't follow blog.shimer.edu, you've missed a remarkable crop of posts from students in Shimer's summer internship programs. More posts are reportedly on the way, but for now, agriculture appears to be the order of the day, with a bit of librarianship and video production around the edges.

While I was looking at colleges in high school, a large part
of Shimer's intrigue for me was its home in Chicago. I believed that
being situated in a large, thriving city would offer an education that
would enhance classroom discussions, and I'm not bashful in boasting the
correctness of that belief! There are unique and creative activities
and organizations happening on every corner of this city that give
reality to the ideas and theories we discuss around the octagonal table.
Something that has really struck me during my stay here Chicago are the
urban agricultural projects. With Chicago being such a "foodie town,"
it’s hard not to pay attention to the higher quality of local food, as
well as the fair ethical practices that embedded in locally grown food.
As my interests rose, I discovered an incredible organization located
right in my own neighborhood called Growing Power.

This week at Growing Power has been a crazy one, but as I was
forewarned, every week is crazy on the farm. A hectic schedule can be
stressful, but it doesn’t have to be. Whenever I start to feel the
pressure, I always remind myself of middle school math. As I first
learned a new formula, I always struggled through the exercises. I
didn’t think I would ever understand the process. But as one day folded
into another, another formula was presented and to my ever-renewing
surprise, I understood the past day’s work as it built upon the present.

I’ll be completing my studies with a yearlong stint in the
Shimer-in-Oxford program, beginning this fall. At Oxford, I’ll continue
my exploration of the German language, as well as the investigation of
humankind’s impact on the environment which I began in Bioethics.

It’s this interest—in living sustainably—which led me to the
internship at which I’ll be working this summer. I’ll be working at
Tryon Farm, which is (not a farm but) a rigorously planned housing
development and intentional community in Michigan City, Indiana. Tryon
is the brainchild of architect Ed Noonan, who served the past two years
as Shimer’s interim president.

It may seem a bit
unusual for a Shimerian to choose to learn the fine art of beekeeping,
but I have for years had a fascination with agriculture and the bugs
that make it happen. I chose to intern as an urban beekeeper as a way to
explore how we can alter the content of our daily lives, practically,
in immediate (and often delicious) ways. Bees are in many ways at the
forefront of the shift toward more sustainable, urban-based food. In
learning how they live and work, I hope to learn how to live and work in
new ways as well. The Catholic Worker Peter Maurin said that "the
scholars must become workers so the workers may be scholars." Maybe
that's my guiding principle this summer.

Before coming to Shimer, my career plans
bounced around frequently: at some point I have wanted to be everything
from a computer technician to a tattoo artist to a journalist. However,
one of the things I have gotten out of Shimer has been somewhat of a
cementing of my career ambitions, or at least of what degree I will be
obtaining in grad school. I have more or less decided I will be getting
a Masters of Library Science degree, but I am still switching between
wishing to be an archivist, or some breed of librarian. The internship
I've secured is aimed to help me decide between the two by giving me
real-world experience in both.

Primarily, I will be working in Richmond, Virginia at the main branch of the public library.
I plan to devote about 25 to 40 hours per week, and I will
be arriving in Richmond around halfway through June and working for
about two months.

This summer I'll be doing two
internships, one with Emergent Order, a media development and production
company in Austin, Texas and the other with writer, Virginia Postrel in
Los Angeles. I discovered Emergent Order through EconStories, the work of director John Papola and
economist Russ Roberts, specifically through their viral music
video-rap-battle between economists Friedrich Hayek and John Maynard
Keynes (watch "Fear the Boom and Bust").
When this video was released in early 2010 I fell in love with it and
became inspired to make my own music video in a similar vein (watch "I'm in Love with Friedrich Hayek").
I sent my video to John and he really enjoyed it. Since then, we've
kept in contact about new ideas and we had been talking about
the possibility of me doing an internship with Emergent Order since last
summer when they moved to Austin and I was working on my second
economics music video "Roll with The Flow."